


Have/Have Not

by lit103



Series: AI [1]
Category: Tintin (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-15
Updated: 2015-03-15
Packaged: 2018-03-17 22:10:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lit103/pseuds/lit103
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Thomson and Thompson have their weird semi-incestuous sex thing. Nestor has those photos of the Bird brothers he told us he was going to throw away but really hid under his mattress and talks to every night before he goes to sleep. Alcazar has Los Desaparecidos. (Someone should really talk to him about that, by the way; the international community is starting to take notice…) I used to have my w-whiskey, but that’s over now. Okay, yes, and I had that thing with Castafiore, but that was only once. No more than twice. Okay, three times, but that was it. What do <i>you</i> have, Tintin?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Have/Have Not

It’s early evening in Marlinspike Hall, and Captain Haddock has been drinking.

Not much, mind. One glass of whiskey. No more than two glasses of whiskey. Okay—one more glass, and that’s it. It’s not like there’s anything better to do around here, he tells himself, as he pours his fourth and final glass. He always forgets, when they’re on a case, just how boring in between cases is. Boring because of Tintin. The Captain’s always wondered what Tintin does in between cases—what he does when he’s alone, really alone—and tonight, he’s going to find out. There’s nothing better to do around here, after all.

Tintin’s been the drawing room with the door shut since dinner. The Captain knows that, if he walks into the room, he’ll find Tintin doing something perfectly normal: reading a book, or filling in a crossword puzzle, or playing solitaire, or something. But he can’t shake the feeling that, if Tintin didn’t know the Captain was watching—if the Captain were to look through the French windows, say, instead of walking in the door—he’d see… Well, he doesn’t know what, exactly. But something _else_.

So he finishes his fourth and final whiskey and makes his way out onto the grounds.

The Captain has walked these grounds hundreds of times by now. He knows them as well as he would have had he lived in his ancestral home all his life. But tonight, they feel different. Eerie, somehow. Clouds shroud the moon and stars in darkness. A wind is rising, and thunder rumbles in the distance, announcing an approaching storm. The Captain creeps around the side of the house, wishing he’d brought his whiskey bottle and jumping at small noises. More than once, he finds himself on the verge of turning back.  _You’re being ridiculous,_  he tells himself, as he draws near the French windows.  _You’re going to look through those windows, and you know what you’re going to see? You’re going to see him reading a book. You’re going to see him doing a crossword puzzle. You’re going to see him playing solitaire. You’re going to see—_

Tintin sitting in an armchair, perfectly still, one leg crossed over the other, arm resting on the arm of his chair, staring straight at the wall with a pleasant smile on his face.

When the Captain yanks open the French windows and strides into the drawing room, Tintin doesn’t speak. He doesn’t even turn his head. He just keeps on smiling at the wall.

The Captain is disconcerted for a moment, yes, but he recovers quickly—thanks, no doubt, to that fourth glass of whiskey. “You know something?” he says, planting himself between the wall and Tintin. “I just can’t figure you out. You’re a great reporter. You have that. You have the stories you’ve filed, the journalistic and civic awards you’ve won. The pictures of people whose lives you’ve saved, the souvenirs they gave you as thanks… But I’m not talking about any of that. Everybody has  _something_ , Tintin, and when I say  _something_ , I don’t mean souvenirs. Thomson and Thompson have their weird semi-incestuous sex thing. Nestor has those photos of the Bird brothers he told us he was going to throw away but really hid under his mattress and talks to every night before he goes to sleep. Alcazar has Los Desaparecidos. (Someone should really talk to him about that, by the way; the international community is starting to take notice…) I used to have my w-whiskey, but that’s over now. Okay, yes, and I had that thing with Castafiore, but that was only once. No more than twice. Okay, three times, but that was it. What do you have, Tintin?”

Tintin just sits there, smiling pleasantly at the wall, as if he can’t hear a word the Captain’s saying.

“Did you know I asked Calculus what he thought you did when you were alone, and he actually made a joke? A joke! Calculus! He said, with a perfectly straight face, ‘He probably plugs himself in and recharges his battery.’ Then, when I laughed, he didn’t even laugh with me! Just stared at me like an owl! Not even blinking! Even  _Calculus_  has no idea what you do when we’re not around! Though I guess when you say ‘keen observer of human behavior,’ ‘Calculus’ isn’t the first name that springs to mind. Half the time he acts like he has no idea there are other human beings on this Earth… but that’s what makes him Calculus! Don’t you see?

“You have to have something. Do you know why? Because everybody does! The Thompsons! Alcazar! Nestor! Castafiore! Calculus! Me! All of us do! That what makes people people!”

The Captain stomps across the room, opens the liquor cabinet, and yanks out a bottle of whiskey—only to find it empty. Something inside him snaps. He hurls the bottle to the floor, seizes Tintin’s shoulders, and hauls him to his feet. “You’re a person, right, Tintin?” he shouts, shaking him. “So what do you have, Tintin? What do you have?!”

Tintin’s head flops back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, and then it falls off. Only as it bounces away from him does the Captain notice the white cord plugged in to the back of it, snaking across the floor to an outlet in the wall. Tintin’s head comes to a stop by the shattered remains of the empty whiskey bottle, and, finally, opens its mouth. “Come here, Snowy! Come here, Snowy! Come here, Snowy!” it says.

From somewhere deep within the house, the Captain hears Snowy’s answering bark.

“Billions of blistering blue barnacles in a piece of fucking _shit_!” he yells. Scooping up Tintin’s head—hollow inside, just like his body—the Captain frantically tries to reattach it, hands shaking so badly he nearly drops it again. The Captain tries twisting the head, but that doesn’t work. He tries sliding it into place, but that doesn’t work either. Finally he steadies it with one hand, clenches his other into a fist, and brings it down hard on the top of Tintin’s head. With a sharp pop, the head snaps into place, Tintin’s mouth closes—and Snowy comes skittering into the room.

Tintin raises his hands to the hinges of his jaw, pressing gently, as if to make sure nothing’s broken. He rotates his head in a slow circle, first from right to left, then from left to right. He kneels and scratches Snowy behind the ears.  Then he turns to the Captain and smiles.

“What were you saying, Captain?” he asks.

The Captain, hands still shaking, crosses the room to the liquor cabinet. The whiskey may be gone, but he’s pretty sure he saw some—yes, some gin in there, an unopened bottle full. “Nothing,” the Captain says, unscrewing the cap and taking a deep, long drink. “Nothing at all.” ▼


End file.
